Abstract
Currently, the analysis of acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) broths is performed using both High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Gas Chromatography (GC) for each sample since GC cannot be used in quantifying sugars and HPLC methods are not yet efficient enough to detect all components separately. In this study, a novel method was developed to quantify all main components present in ABE model solutions (acetone, butanol, ethanol, butyric acid, acetic acid, glucose and xylose) using only HPLC. Although the HPLC operating conditions were optimized to obtain the best possible resolution in HPLC chromatograms, it was observed that the peaks for butyric acid, acetone and ethanol overlapped. The same trend was observed for glucose and xylose. Using the asymmetric Gaussian fit, a program was written in MATLAB to detect the overlapped peaks, deconvolute them and calculate the area of each separated peak. The concentrations of each component were then calculated using the areas and the calibration curves for each component. Experimental results show that this method works well for the ABE model solutions and can be used to quantify all components in the solution when there are some overlapped peaks in the HPLC chromatograms.
Highlights
Due to environmental challenges and problems associated with fossil fuels such as depletion of resources, high cost and political instability in oil-producing countries, one of industrialists’ and scientists’ main concerns is to produce fuels from sustainable resources
Butanol has a net heat of combustion (NHOC) close to gasoline; it is less hazardous to handle due to its lower vapor pressure and volatility, and it can be blended with gasoline in any proportion and be used in existing car engines without any modifications [1]-[9]
Due to the characteristics of components leading to similar retention times, some conflicts may occur between the different peaks in the High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) chromatograms
Summary
Due to environmental challenges and problems associated with fossil fuels such as depletion of resources, high cost and political instability in oil-producing countries, one of industrialists’ and scientists’ main concerns is to produce fuels from sustainable resources. Biofuels have attracted significant attention because their production methods are more environmentally friendly. Biofuels such as bioethanol and biobutanol have shown to be promising alternatives to fossil fuel. Butanol has a net heat of combustion (NHOC) close to gasoline; it is less hazardous to handle due to its lower vapor pressure and volatility, and it can be blended with gasoline in any proportion and be used in existing car engines without any modifications [1]-[9] It is limited by its low final concentration due to product inhibition. Clostridia species are the most common microorganisms used for this fermentation process [9]-[11]
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